


you, who has given me dreams

by yuliaplisetskaya



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Falling In Love, First Kiss, M/M, Skater Viktor, coach yuuri, reverse au, tender snippets from their summer together, very mild miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 14:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15997013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuliaplisetskaya/pseuds/yuliaplisetskaya
Summary: Spring is a budding flower that blooms into a wonderful feeling, a feeling they have decided to call love.





	you, who has given me dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Makira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makira/gifts).



> so this was written for @basking-robin on tumblr !! i hope you had an amazing summer, and i hope this fic is to your liking <3  
> (title is from haru yo, koi by yumi matsutoya)

"That's it for today. Let's go home,"

 

Viktor glides over toward the exit, where Yuuri is already waiting with his skate guards in hand. Catching his breath, he stops for a while, leaning against the rink barrier before looking up to meet Yuuri's eyes. "Wow," he says, "I haven't felt this tired in a while,"

 

"I'm not overworking you, aren't I?" Yuuri asks, searching Viktor's face with his gaze. "Tell me if I am,"

 

"No. It's the good kind of tired," And it's true; his joints feel stretched in a pleasant way, like they've been put to the use they're supposed to be serving. It's the kind of tired one experiences after a really productive day, satisfaction taking root in a body that just wants to rest.

 

If Viktor's being honest, he hasn't felt anything in a while, and he only just realised he's been numb when all sensations came rushing back to him. There's this thing Yuuri does, only by virtue of existing, that reminds him of how it's like to live and to love. It's in the way Yuuri moves, the way he skates even when he was at his lowest, the way he creates music with his body; Yuuri is a living miracle, Viktor thinks.

 

Like right now, with his coach's warm brown eyes focused on him, a small, almost-shy smile tugging at the corner of his lips, Viktor has never felt more anchored. "That's nice, then," Yuuri answers, nodding to himself, stepping aside to let Viktor use the shower.

 

Yuuri takes his hand during the walk back to the onsen. His palm is soft and considerably smaller than Viktor's, and Viktor idly wonders if he can fit it in his grasp. But Yuuri's fingers are already nestled comfortably atop the back of his palm and he sees no reason to disrupt the arrangement. This is the pace in which Yuuri will like for them to go, and Viktor will gladly follow, the way he's done since he first arrived in Hasetsu.

 

The sun begins to set, the remnants of its orange hue casting dark shadows on the upper half of Yuuri's beautiful face as he tilts his head to look at Viktor properly. "I'm glad you're here, Viktor," he says before leaning closer to Viktor. Now they're standing shoulder to shoulder, descending the slope downward that leads to the road home.

 

Viktor doesn't know when he started calling Yutopia home. Viktor also doesn't know if Yuuri can see his cheeks the way he feels they must look like right now--bright red, sunkissed, flushed with happiness. If he can, then Viktor will let him. Yuuri deserves to know the joy he's brought to every life he touches, Viktor's included.

 

Slowly but gently, Viktor rests his head against Yuuri's, taking in the smell of sweat and seasalt and the rink and the slightest trace of his shampoo. He tentatively presses his lips on Yuuri's scalp, worries Yuuri will pull away. "I'm glad you're here, too," his reply comes, almost timid, the small movement sending a strand or two of black hair billowing. Yuuri melts against him, closing the distance between them, lets Viktor stay where he is.

 

*

 

They've gone so far, and yet it feels like they've barely begun.

 

It still doesn't register in Viktor's mind that it has almost been a year since he netted a gold that didn't quite feel like it belonged to him, since the rightful winner broke his four years worth of streak by scoring what possibly was the lowest points he'd ever got since he turned senior, since the banquet that changed Viktor's life for good. It has almost been a year since Yuuri held an impromptu press conference mere days before Japanese Nationals, politely announcing his retirement with trembling voice before leaving the eventually riotous figure skating community with radio silence on his part.

 

And Viktor would have been content to let Yuuri disappear to the depth of the earth if not for a video that trended for a week after it'd surfaced on Youtube.

 

(Viktor had not been content, just like how the tearful hoard of Yuuri's fans all over the world had not been content and nursed their collective heartbreaks, just like how Viktor nursed his and wondered if he misunderstood anything from the GPF afterparty that fateful night, but he had let Yuuri be.)

 

The video was shaky, unfocused at all the wrong moments, and there were times when the skater being recorded completely disappeared of the frame. Viktor dropped everything on his hand in his haste to watch it the moment his inbox exploded with everyone he knew sending him the link, running on autopilot, transfixed by the figure on the screen. It ended too early for his liking, so he clicked replay to start it again. And again. And again.

 

He didn't know his program could be that beautiful, could look like something out of this earth. Every sharp turn was amplified in minuscule movements only Yuuri could pull off, every landing in sync with the beat of the nonexistent music. He'd downgraded Viktor's original layout into only triple jumps, but like a lost traveler holding on to home, like a heartbroken lover clinging to the past, Yuuri had replaced his triple axel-triple loop-double loop combination with his signature quad axel, recovering from the flow out of his landing with a small triumphant smile before going into the combination spin, finishing the program.

 

Viktor couldn't get the bright smile that graced Yuuri's face after that quad axel out of his mind.

 

*

 

The first few weeks of their arrangement were made of uneven edges, sharp and foreign. Yuuri kept walking on the eggshells he thought himself to be, and Viktor kept barging into locked doors like a wayward contestant of a game show trying to guess which one was open and would eventually lead to the exit to no avail. There was this misguided, void belief Yuuri stubbornly held on to, about how he didn't deserve the position to be lecturing his rival, someone who'd been competing in the same bracket as him for years, decades even, that held Yuuri back from ever giving any valuable insight on Viktor's skating. As if the gap in their achievements didn't more than make up for it. As if Yuuri became and stayed first by virtue of mere luck.

 

(Distantly, months later, Viktor realised, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that this genuinely was what Yuuri had believed all this time. He would work on disabusing Yuuri from this notion--they would work on this together. They had to. So many people looked up to Yuuri, juniors and novices and even seniors, skaters from their own division and outside of it, and still Yuuri couldn't look at himself.)

 

Soon Viktor got tired of only getting lukewarm feedbacks on his skating, words carefully chosen from a template of neutral reactions, lined up neatly, unthreatening. Viktor didn't want neat. That wasn't how this worked, not how their sport worked, this bloody, bruising, beautiful thing. Viktor was used to pain, and the way Yuuri kept shielding him from it felt patronising, if anything. He told Yuuri as much.

 

"I'm not keeping anything from you," Yuuri lied through his teeth.

 

Viktor held his gaze steady from the other side of the rink barrier. With his skates on and Yuuri only in his trainers, Viktor felt like he was towering over his coach. "You're not giving anything for me, either,"

 

"I told you, that was good enough this early in the offseason," Yuuri insisted.

 

It wasn't good enough. If it were, Viktor would have beaten Yuuri in competitions more often than he already did, which currently amounted to zero times. "There are mistakes in my technique. I know you think so too. I need your help pointing them out so I can work on them. Please don't mince your words with me, Yuuri. I can handle criticism,"

 

That put a sour edge on Yuuri's voice. "Well, if you know something is wrong, why don't you tell me what it is, then? Share with the class, since clearly you don't need my help on that,"

 

Viktor only raised an eyebrow. "You're the Olympic gold medalist. _You_ tell me," And that was a very low blow, he knew, located on a level Viktor wouldn't usually stoop to, but this was the only door that would budge to let him through, so he held his position.

 

Surely enough, Yuuri instantly looked at Viktor dead in the eyes, the fire neither of them had seen for a while burning behind his gaze. "Fine. Alright. Your step sequence is too packed and too empty at the same time; you need to give yourself room to breathe and let your movements speak for yourself. Also if you can help it, stick to three-turn entries for your quad toe, you'll have better control over rotations that way, I noticed. I did it from a straight line entry because I can't land it otherwise, but that's not the case for you," Yuuri took a deep breath, ending his sentence with a fissured shudder, his voice almost shaking, the beginnings of tears starting to pool in his eyes. "Satisfied?"

 

Carefully Viktor took Yuuri's hands between his own, clasping them tightly. "Thank you so much, Yuuri," he whispered, beaming so bright it hurt his cheeks. He leaned across the barrier to gather Yuuri in a hug and Yuuri sank, clutching on to Viktor's sweat-soaked shirt like he never wanted to let go, something akin to relief flooding the two of them.

 

*

 

Summer came softly after an unusual stretch of spring that year. Tender wisps of sunlight caressed frozen grounds, coaxing them back to life. Yuuri's fleeting touch on Viktor's skin left scorching trail behind, even hours after; the brush of fingers as a cold can of soda was passed from one hand to another, palm pressed flush against thigh when Yuuri approached to correct Viktor's spin position, Yuuri's careful hand brushing back the fringe on his face as they sat facing each other, the words from their discarded idle conversation already dissipating into the silence. The nerves underneath Viktor's skin sang themselves awake in Yuuri's proximity.

 

They worked something out between the two of them, in the end. This was as new to Yuuri as it was for Viktor, he knew, and everything felt as tentative as it did sweet, bubble-wrapped intimacy that looked like it could burst any time when they eventually left Hasetsu once the competitive season started. But even in the secure space of their shared moment together, when it felt like they spoke in the same language just through stolen glances and the weight of the other's arm curled around their hip, Viktor could still sense the distance between them, missing pieces of a big picture Yuuri couldn't trust Viktor with yet, couldn't even trust himself with on worse days.

 

It was okay. He just had to keep trying.

 

"Yuuri, let's go to beach today," Viktor asked over breakfast. Yuuri agreed in a heartbeat.

 

"Sure. I haven't been there in a while,"

 

The sky was cloudy by the time they got there. What wind remained blew the smallest of waves over to their feet, where they unfurled, kissed the tip of their toes, and politely retreated to where they came from. "Yuuri, if there's something you don't like from how things are going, please tell me?"

 

Yuuri visibly looked like he was trying to swallow his default "I'm okay" answers and mold them into something that more resembled how he felt.

 

"What do you want me to be to you?" Viktor asked. "A father figure? Or your boyfriend, maybe--"

 

"No, Viktor," Yuuri quickly cuts in, "I'm happy with you staying who you are. Just be Viktor, please,"

 

Before he could recover from the shock, Yuuri continued, "Whatever reservation I felt--still feel--about this, about us, it's not your fault. I just--I don't think I'm worthy of you,"

 

Slowly Viktor ran his fingers through the coarse sand underneath, methodically folding and unfolding his knuckles. "Maybe you can let me decide that for myself?"

 

"I'm a weak person, Viktor. I keep pushing people out at the most unfortunate timing because I don't want them to see me wilt, but somehow my family, Minako-sensei, and you too, now--you never treat me like the weakling that I am,"

 

Viktor sighed. "You're not weak, Yuuri. No one thinks that,"

 

"I lost Japan's Worlds spots just months after we finally thought we had hopes for figure skating," And there it was, the years-old wound that wouldn't stop plaguing Yuuri, miring his entire worldview. "I keep disappointing everyone who expects so much from me,"

 

Just yesterday, Yuuri had told Viktor his consistent placing at the podium at Worlds was an admirable feat. It felt like there was this inhumane standard Yuuri put himself against that he would never dream of pitting anyone else against. Yuuri told Viktor off after three runthroughs of his free a day, but if what Viktor had been hearing was true, there had been a time Yuuri wouldn't leave the rink until he had done twenty runthroughs and made sure the program had been burned into every cell in his body.

 

Yuuri was always kind and rational to anyone but himself. Viktor said as much.

 

"If you called a four-year winning streak disappointing, then I don't even want to look at my own career,"

 

"I know. I'm sorry," Yuuri responded immediately. "Just. Please have more faith in myself than I do? Like you've done before?"

 

Viktor had never lost faith in Yuuri, not since Vancouver. When he looked up to meet Yuuri's eyes, sunlight had broken off from behind the clouds, its ray glinting off Yuuri's glasses lens. "Of course I will," Viktor said finally.

 

*

 

"Let's not stay in tonight," Yuuri suggests, as if the matter was ever a question for a day like today, when everyone spills out on the street to watch the sky being painted in technicolour. Viktor humours him, humours the layers in his words, the subtle ways in which Yuuri operates. If he's not careful, he thinks he might fall in love with it, too. Viktor's never careful when it comes to loving Yuuri. He has no intention in doing so.

 

"Okay, Yuuri," he says, and the smile on his face is so bright, so real and not at all out of place, he almost doesn't recognise himself.

 

They spend the evening lost in their own world. Everyone else gives them the space they need, coexisting in similar spheres of happiness in a way that's only made possible by the sizzling summer air. This is part of Hasetsu's charm, Viktor supposes. The way people can see Katsuki Yuuri, the living legend, and Yuuri-kun, the innkeeper's softspoken son who easily gets overwhelmed, at the same time and have no problem reconciling the two. The way Okukawa Minako, the world-renowned dancer whom Lilia still occasionally speaks about in a reverent tone, is also the Minako who fights inn patrons for the TV's remote and constantly tries to drink everyone under the table.

 

It gives Viktor hope that maybe he can be someone Yuuri can love in his entirety.

 

Nearing the peak of the night they get a spot obscured from the rest of the crowd, but still open enough so they can see the final display of fireworks. Yuuri's voice is almost drowned by the loudness of an entire town, the wild cheers each time another burst of colour is set off. They draw closer to each other as the day draws closer to an end. Viktor can feel Yuuri's warm breath against his skin, smelling of sake, the beginnings of a blush creeping across the bridge of his nose, feverish in the dark. Behind him, a yellow stream shoots up to the sky before exploding; the light it casts on Yuuri's face makes him glow.

 

"Viktor," Yuuri says, leaning closer. "I'm going to do something selfish, if you'd let me," And as Viktor's eyes flutter shut, the firework remains behind his eyelids, golden and effervescent, like the feeling of Yuuri's lips against his, warm and treasured and loved.

 

*

 

(The words _first GP win_ and _five-time European champion_ shouldn't even exist in the same sentence, but here Viktor is, after delivering what feels like the free skate of his life, securing gold at NHK trophy and his second qualification at the GPF. His heart is in his mouth, scrambling to get out and announce itself to the world. Beside him, Yuuri is vibrating, slightly bouncing on the balls of his feet. Viktor can only imagine he feels the same.

 

From somewhere on their side, someone approaches, heavy footfalls followed by snaps of a camera and flash going off. "Katsuki- _senshu_ \--" Hisashi Morooka starts, most likely from muscle memory, and promptly stops.

 

For the first time in a year, Yuuri doesn't flinch. The curves of his shoulder that used to stiffen at the title are bubbling with happiness. His lips are rosy, still smarting from the impact of the tackle, and they're pulled to a small, almost-giddy smile. Like this, Yuuri looks every bit of lovestruck. It suits him, Viktor thinks. "Yes?"

 

For the first time in a year, Morooka barrels on. "--what are yours and Viktor Nikiforov's plan for the rest of the season?"

 

"Viktor is a really kind, hardworking person," Yuuri begins. "and in his own way, he has made me realise that love exists around me. He's the first person I've wanted to hold on to,"

 

Viktor is afloat. Yuuri is spilling his heart out in the open, and his words, unfiltered and not consciously chosen, strike Viktor as very tender and they make their way inside his veins, make his pulse hum with a happiness whose beats matches Yuuri's own thumping heart. "Now that we know what love is and are stronger for it, I'll be able to help Viktor win the Grand Prix Final and all his other competitions this season,"

 

Love.

 

Viktor turns to look at Yuuri, who's already looking up at him, his face filled with so much adoration it makes Viktor's heart ache. He wonders if he shares the expression, decides that he probably does, going by how intensely he feels about all of this inside. Viktor thinks, _I want to kiss him again_. And then, _so this is what love feels like_ , and then, as Yuuri tiptoes to drop a quick peck on his lips before pulling him by the wrist to go somewhere else, just short of giggling like schoolboys drunk on their first love, _it looks good on the two of us_.)

**Author's Note:**

> (thank you, mods of the victuuri summer lovin' gift exchange for holding this event !!)


End file.
